'62 Mets on this year's Orioles

MLB.com columnist Marty Noble recently wrote a column centering on the chances of this year’s Orioles team possibly giving the 120-loss ’62 Mets squad a run for their money. You can read the whole story here, but I excerpted some of the highlights…

Al Jackson: “…Losing 120 times was different. It was every day. And I’d never
been with a losing team in my life.“

“You’d wake up in the morning and say, ‘We’ve got a chance tonight.’ But
you’d just be lying. We had no chance. It was dreadful what we went
through. How could you wish that some other team suffered like we did?

“I know the Orioles are going through a tough time, but I don’t think
they can keep up with what we did,” Jackson said. ” I don’t want to hang onto [the
distinction] necessarily. But I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else. That
was hard. It was misery.”

“The team was bad. But the memories are good,” Roger Craig said seven
summers ago when the Tigers threatened to wrest away the Mets’
distinction.

“Some of the guys, I think, want to hang on to it,” Craig said. “It’s
like a pitcher who gives up a real long home run or a historic one. And
he wants to be remembered it. He wants to be remembered for something.”

The Orioles’ four-game winning streak might be the push they need to get out of the woods. They entered Tuesday 23-52 and, as Noble notes, catching the Mets would be a challenge.

“By the time those Mets played their 63rd game, they were well
past the 17 straight losses that left them 24 games behind after 48
games. But they had the 11-game losing streak in July and a 13-game
streak in August. That left them 65 games under .500 and 50 1/2 games
from first place. And they lost 17 of their final 22 games.”

“For their sake,” Jackson said, “I hope the Orioles win some and spare
themselves the misery we had.”

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